This is a tough paper. Like many analytic papers of its time, it expects the reader to do a lot of the heavy lifting, and prefers to slyly imply that ...
I have no particular sympathy with Chomsky on this line (I don't study this, or much care one way or the other), but to demand just-so stories at this...
I think that, given how little we know about the origins of language, speculation about it is appropriate at this stage. I also want to caution that t...
Maybe so. That is why Cavell and Rorty defected to literary criticism – I think they really believed it, and put their money where their mouth was. Ma...
It is hard to draw boundaries, as with most traditions. But the advent of Moore looks like a hard break to me, and then around 1970, with the rise of ...
I would say the Frege-Russel line is really just an extension of Boole, who is the forerunner of modern logic, and inventor of the notions of composit...
Well, Moore is a weird case. I think that the commentaries on him were what really spurred ordinary language philosophy, but Moore himself wasn't too ...
There seem to be two roots of analytic philosophy. One traces to George Boole, and the other traces to G. E. Moore. The two roots don't have much to d...
I really like the analytic tradition, especially from roughly Moore to Rorty. From the late 70's on, I'm not much of a fan. But the positivists and or...
The reason long posts tend to be bad is that people generally can't go for a long time without making mistakes, so it gives you the chance to confuse ...
So in the case of the "understudied" opinions, at least they have the advantage of not being any dumber than the day they were born. Worth considering...
"Study" of New Age, pseudohistory, conspiracy theories, etc. won't leave you any smarter, and in fact might do damage to your ability to think. I susp...
I have heard it said that being able to lift a lot of weight makes one strong. But in fact, only one unable to lift weight can be strong. For strength...
It is often thought that hungry people are the ones who want food. How stupid this is! For it is actually those who are full that want food, and in fa...
Let me try. Ahem. We often think that people who live in dangerous neighborhoods are fearful for their safety. But anyone who's not a moron knows that...
I actually work in a field not quite so dependent on grant funding, which is part of why I went into it. The rest of the post is just a reiteration of...
I'm in academia, so – I generally choose how much effort to spend on which projects, whether it's worth being a perfectionist or not, whether I should...
Like what? When my hand is "not tipped by force or circumstance?" Sure. That sounds...really awful. If you really live that way, there might be someth...
A lot of your posts are like this – they just invert some platitude (like in the thread claiming that only what we are not in control of is what we're...
Just because someone does what you want doesn't mean you're in control of them. And people that you beat up often do what you want, involuntarily – so...
Presumably, if they do it voluntarily, you aren't in control of them. If I have a kid or a slave that I can beat whenever I want, then I am in control...
This is a strange way of reasoning. Surely those who can get away with violence, because they are in control, are therefore in the best position to ca...
OK, great. So let me ask you another question. Who do you think commits the most violence in the world? Would you describe those organizations or peop...
I don't know. I feel Moorean puzzlement at a lot of what you say, since it seems so strange or false that I start wondering, "what is he talking about...
Well, a democratist is no worse than anyone else, I suppose. But it seems like there's a double humiliation involved in taking this line – to shill fo...
You're free to believe that, but belief in the power of a political ideology in spite of all evidence to the contrary strikes me as deluded fanaticism...
I hate to break it to you, my friend. We're living in your head rent-free, as the kids say. In my own life, I have always found overtly political peop...
Oh – my bad! But why are you shilling for our ideology online, then? I'm not sure any one quality unites the ones willing to do the worst, except mayb...
I think you might have a lot of things that run just because people do their own thing without thinking about anything. But then, I don't think all th...
If there's no gun at the end of it, it's not power, since then people can just ignore you. Who would pay taxes if you couldn't be imprisoned for it? A...
I think that people usually are in a reactive position with respect to politics. We as Americans (I am assuming you are American, given the hand-wring...
I don't see the examples you identify as antithetical to what I said – in the end, it's still about who gets to kill who (or some proxy for it, like i...
In other words, the question has moved from "which nation gets to kill which other nation" to "which race gets to kill which other race," etc. and som...
Politics is about force, and which groups get to kill which other groups if they don't obey. So it's always going to be identity politics since there'...
Only C) follows. "No people are not dinosaurs" -> ~Ex This is NOT true, so: ~~Ex Ex This is equivalent to saying that there is a person who isn't a di...
Comments